The Maharashtra government will not invest in new irrigatiprojects till the pending ones are completed.
The Maharashtra government will not invest in new irrigatiprojects till the pending ones are completed.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and his deputy Ajit Pawar have decided not to entertain any new proposals, a source in the chief minister’s office said. Irrigation minister Sunil Tatkare would be asked to complete pending projects within their deadlines, the source said.
The net irrigated area in the state is about 38-40lakh hectares. Policy makers have noticed that the irrigation sector has not made much progress despite high budgetary allocations. Project delays lead to cost escalation and often funds are diverted to keep contractors happy, the source said.
At least Rs33,000 crore would be needed to complete the ongoing projects, an irrigation department official said. Even if the government allots Rs10,000 crore in the 2011-12 budget, it would fall short of the overall requirement, he said.
“It is high time that the government does some serious thinking,” former state planning board deputy chairman Ratnakar Mahajan said. “We should go back to the drawing board to find out if it is feasible to sanction big irrigation projects. Also, we have to see if a particular project is worth the cost involved. It will be better to first complete pending projects.”
Another irrigation department official said that the Congress-NCP government allocated more than Rs60,000 crore in the irrigation sector between 1999 and 2011. But there are more than 8,000 incomplete projects in the state.
“The government should come out with a white paper on such projects,” state BJP chief Sudhir Mungantiwar said. “Every year, they earmark a lot of money for irrigation projects. They should explain how the money has been spent.”
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